Colonial Brazil (Vol. 1)

An accessible collection of key trends in recent historical research on our colonial period.

The collection "O Brasil Colonial" brings together national and international authors who seek to unravel areas of research on Portuguese-speaking Latin American society that remain largely unexplored by emerging Brazilian historiography. The articles presented here aim to provide readers with a glimpse into the state of the art on various topics within what we are calling "deep Portuguese-speaking America." These articles draw on a comprehensive and refined bibliography of classic subjects, but there are also chapters that explore new methods for old themes, or even writings on underexplored subjects. All this is designed to allow for a plurality of theoretical perspectives.

This first volume covers Modern Europe, pre-colonial African societies and their involvement in the slave trade, indigenous societies in the 16th century, and the beginning of the European conquest. One of the guiding principles of this volume was the idea that, in order to conquer the New World, Europe had to first conquer itself (expansion between the 11th and 13th centuries), and that understanding Ancien Régime society in the Iberian Peninsula is key to the formation of Portuguese America.

Participating in this edition:

Hebe Mattos, Jean-Fredérique Schaub, António Manuel Hespanha, José Manuel Subtil, João Pacheco de Oliveira, Manolo Florentino, Mafalda Soares da Cunha, Elisa Frühauf, Ronaldo Vainfas, Andréa Daher, Maria Regina Celestino de Almeida, Georgina Silva dos Santos and Francisco Carlos Cosentino.

The three volumes of the Colonial Brazil collection bring together studies covering the long period between 1500 and 1808, from the Portuguese discoveries to the establishment of the royal family in Rio de Janeiro. Due to its diversity, the collection is aimed not only at university audiences but also at other readers and those curious about our history. The articles aim to address a serious deficiency in academic production, which sometimes seems averse to popular works. This collection brings together the main trends in historical research over the last 20 years.